


like every day

by mingyuan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mingyuan/pseuds/mingyuan
Summary: A quiet morning.





	like every day

**Author's Note:**

> I've been with my partner for nearly a year now, and I've been thinking about the differences between fanfiction and reality - which things are the same, which are overstated, which are missing - in terms of love and chronic illness and coming of age. While idly reflecting on that, I happened to write this. I hope you like it.

Remus aches in the morning when he wakes up, his knees cracking and his jaw off-center, his muscles bunched into burning knots along his shoulder blades and all down his calves. Across from him, a white grid of window panes is painted in sunlight against the wall, clear and crisp and almost blinding. 

Today, like every day, he lifts himself from his bed like an automaton, places his bare feet on the cold smoothness of the wood floor, shuts the window against the chill. He makes toast and tea in the cramped kitchen, squeezing his eyes shut for a few last moments of sleep as he waits for the water to boil, the toaster to pop, the tea to steep. Like every day, it’s a gamble as to whether he’ll be able to keep it down.

Tea in hand, he returns to the bedroom, letting his footfalls thud against the creaky floorboards. Like every day, he pauses in the doorway for just a moment. Sirius is curled on his side, his black hair fanned out against the pillow, and a quiet warmth stirs in Remus’ chest to see him safe and peaceful. He sets the tea on his bedside table and trails his fingertips along the smooth skin of Sirius’ exposed arm. Sirius murmurs a little at the touch, then comes awake ungracefully, with little snorts and moans. 

“Morning, Moony,” he murmurs, voice soft and slurred with sleep. “How’s my werewolf?”

Remus only shrugs, but leans down to kiss his forehead. His whole body is tense and the space behind his ribs feels achingly empty, but he doesn’t need to say that, not in this morning-quiet, sleep-warm moment, with Sirius safe beside him, half-smiling, half-asleep.

“How’s my black sheep?” he returns, carding his fingers through the soft strands of Sirius’s hair. Sirius just gives a sleepy _mmmm_ and nuzzles into Remus’s palm.

His whole being softens at that, from the top of his head all the way down through to his fingertips and toes - the ache doesn’t go away but he feels the muscles in his face loosen, relaxing into a fond smile. He presses a kiss to the soft skin above Sirius’s armpit, and lets himself be pulled into a spine-cracking hug that really only encompasses his neck and shoulders. After a moment he wriggles closer to Sirius, adjusting the hug so he can pepper kisses along his neck and ear and temple and relishing the moment when the suave and unflappable Sirius Black succumbs to a giggling fit and starts trying to wrestle him off.

Remus is under no illusions that he and Sirius will live to see each other grow old. Sirius is leaving on another mission tomorrow, and just like every time, he might never come back. They might not survive the next full moon together, or the one after that. For all Remus knows, the Ministry might have fallen this morning and the news just hasn’t reached them yet. But for now, they have this – this warmth and laughter, this waking up in the morning and not being alone. Outside the walls of this tiny flat, people are being tortured, mutilated, and ripped away from their families; plans are afoot that could end the world as they know it for good, and every day Remus and Sirius get up and do their own meager parts for the war effort even when it feels like their work is worse than useless. Things are truly awful, but, Remus thinks, rolling over to pin Sirius beneath him, they’re a lot better than they might be.


End file.
